#govdesign | Martin Jordan | 21 comments

You have no idea how much good work is happening in the public sector. Neither have I. That is why I co-run meetups. They make good things visible and invite exchange. Government and the wider public sector lack channels to document and share the good work they’re doing. Besides press releases, there is often far too little record of work that thousands of colleagues and the public should know about. Open events allow outsiders to make the work better and let people build upon it. Government also desperately needs more spaces for interaction and conversation – with public servants and members of the public alike. Often, culture prohibits the spaces from forming. But that is counterproductive; to build trust in the state, we need such forums. Tomorrow, we are running our 12th public-facing event in 3 years. In April 2023, we launched our Berlin-based event format to have our own outlet for discourse. We had been sharing our own work at other local meetups. Yet we wanted to explore public-sector topics and themes in greater depth. Christian Kaatz, Magdalena and I kicked things off; Tobias and Victoria joined soon after. Eventually, Lisa joined and now Tim. It requires a small crew to run these things. Much of the format is shaped after London’s #GovDesign meetup. I co-founded it in 2017 after moving back there. I was surprised by how much terrific work was happening in the public sector – and how little of it is visible. The same applies to Germany today. Over 1,000 people are part of our meetup group now. It has a 4.8-star rating out of 5. But people aren’t very loyal, which is ok. They often come for a specific topic that draws their attention. Only about 20% are returning attendees, we found. I co-run meetups to satisfy my own curiosity. Each of the topics we discussed was to scratch an itch. Favourite past topics included ‘Innovating public healthcare’, ‘Reshaping urban mobility’, ‘ Visualising data’, and ‘Filling the gaps’. Each event taught me something new. It also allows me to design a poster every quarter and hone a neglected skill. Meetups are also a vital tool for recruitment. They give potential candidates interested in open roles an idea of what it’s like to work for CityLAB Berlin or DigitalService. An evening allows for conversations you might not otherwise have. ‘Remaking the welfare state’ is our next topic. We’ll have 4 speakers tomorrow: Anja Mayr, Björn Mohr, Dr. Florian Theißing and Johann Jakob Häußermann. As always, talks are in English. That is obvious for attendees, but not always for the public servants we request as speakers. In an international city like Berlin, public participation requires English. Don’t worry if you cannot make it. We are recording every event. We might be a bit slow in publishing the recordings, but they will come eventually. | 21 comments on LinkedIn